The impact of Pascal education on debugging skill

Stone, Dan N.; Jordan, Eleanor W.; Wright, Melissa

doi:10.1016/s0020-7373(05)80116-6

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In 550 DAVIES enhances the mapping between structures in the problem domain and structures in the language domain. In a similar vein, Stone, Jordan, and Wright (1990) provided evidence that learning structured programming through Pascal education can improve programmers' general debugging performance by increasing the comprehension of program goals and plans.…”

Section: The Plag-based Approach To Program Understandingmentioning

confidence: 95%

The Role of Notation and Knowledge Representation in the Determination of Programming Strategy: A Framework for Integrating Models of Programming Behavior

Davies

1991

Cognitive Science

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A number of accounts of expert programming behavior have been advanced. These models of the programming activity have served to highlight the range of factors that are thought to underpin programming strategy. However, such accounts have tended to emphasize either the effects of the organization of the programmer's knowledge representation or the role played by features of the notation of the task language on the emergence, development, and support of particular forms of strategy. Such work has neglected to (a) provide an account of the way in which these factors might interact to determine programming strategy, and (b) shed light upon the nature of the development of particular strategies as programming skill increases. This article presents the results of an empirical analysis of the strategies employed by programmers of varying skill levels using different programming languages. The development of particular forms of strategy is hypothesized to be related both to the development of systematic asymmetries in programmers' generic plan‐based representations of programming knowledge and to the way in which features of the notation of particular programming languages might differentially support particular strategies. However, the results of the study reported here suggest that these effects must be interpreted within a broad developmental context. Hence, as programming skill develops, it appears that the notation of the task language tends to take precedence as a determinant of strategy, but has less relevance at beginning stages of skill development and within the context of expert performance. This finding would not be predicted by current models of the programming activity because such models suggest that any notational effects will tend to be consistent regardless of the skill level attained by the programmer. This article endeavors to extend current models of programming by emphasizing the need to consider in detail not only the development of programming strategy, but also the way in which knowledge representation and features of the task langauge interact to give rise to particular forms of programming behavior.

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Section: The Plag-based Approach To Program Understandingmentioning

confidence: 95%

The Role of Notation and Knowledge Representation in the Determination of Programming Strategy: A Framework for Integrating Models of Programming Behavior

Davies

1991

Cognitive Science

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“…Davies (1990a) reported experimental work that suggested that the ability to extract plan structures from program texts was largely dependent upon the design experience possessed by the programmer, and that this design experience helped the programmer to construct a mapping between structures in the problem domain (plans) and structures in the language domain (programs). Additional evidence for this idea was presented by Stone, Jordan, and Wright (1990), who provided experimental support for the idea that instruction in structured programming could improve debugging performance by increasing a programmer's comprehension of program goals and plans. Taken together, these findings appear to pose significant difficulties for plan theories of programming, because educational background and differences in teaching strategy per se should not affect the nature of plan knowledge or the acquisition of plans and their use.…”

Section: Plans Are Language and Problem Independentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The structure and content of programming knowledge: Disentangling training and language effects in theories of skill development

Davies

1993

International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

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This article reviews the extensive literature emerging from studies concerned with skill acquisition and the development of knowledge representation in programming. In particular, it focuses upon theories of program comprehension that suggest programming knowledge can be described in terms of stereotypical knowledge structures that can in some way capture programming expertise independently of the programming language used and in isolation from a programmer's specific training experience. An attempt is made to demonstrate why existing views are inappropriate. On the one hand, programs are represented in terms of a variety of formal notations ranging from the quasi-mathematical to the near textual. It is argued that different languages may lead to different forms of knowledge representation, perhaps emphasizing certain structures at the expense of others or facilitating particular strategies. On the other hand, programmers are typically taught problem-solving techniques that suggest a strict approach to problem decomposition. Hence, it seems likely that another factor that may mediate the development of knowledge representation, and that has not received significant attention elsewhere, is related to the training experience that programmers typically encounter. In this article, recent empirical studies that have addressed these issues are reviewed, and the implications of these studies for theories of skill acquisition and for knowledge representation are discussed.In conclusion, a more extensive account of knowledge representation in programming is presented that emphasizes training effects and the role played by specific language features in the development of knowledge representation within the programming domain.

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Linking Theory with ITS Implementation: Models of Programming and the Development of Programming Tutors

Davies

Castell

1993

NATO ASI Series

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The impact of Pascal education on debugging skill

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

The Role of Notation and Knowledge Representation in the Determination of Programming Strategy: A Framework for Integrating Models of Programming Behavior

The Role of Notation and Knowledge Representation in the Determination of Programming Strategy: A Framework for Integrating Models of Programming Behavior

The structure and content of programming knowledge: Disentangling training and language effects in theories of skill development

Linking Theory with ITS Implementation: Models of Programming and the Development of Programming Tutors

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